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Tom McGrath Q&A

I sat in for a roundtable interview with Megamind Director/Animator/Screenwriter Tom McGrath. He directed Dreamworks newest adventure Megamind. We talked about Superman, Adam West, directing an animated feature, and he even sold me on 3D.

How do you direct an animated film?

Tom McGrath: In a way it’s the same way you direct a live action film. You work with the writer. You work with the production designer. In fact, you have more than just the cast to work with. You have about 60 animators that you work with like actors. Production design is very heavy because you’re talking about the world and designing the world. The tool set is the same; it just encompasses a lot longer time. Live action is like you’re running a sprint and animation is more like you’re running a marathon and working with 400 to 600 artist. The benefit working in animation, and some may say it’s a curse because it take so long, but rather than develop a script for several years and shoot it for 90 days you get to work over course of 2-3 years to draw the film and get it up with the voice actors and see if it’s working. You can delete entire sequences because it’s not film. Theoretically you can make the best story you can. The problem is always the same in life action – the story.
As a medium animation, to me, is more empowering creativity wise because you can control things like the weather. You can have “magic hour” lighting all day long if you want [laughs]. There is no weather, there are no permits. The things that are difficult in animation that you tend to take for granted are things like water and rain. There is scene in the movie with rain going down the street and it’s really problematic. There is a lot of technology that goes into making it feel real because everyone knows what rain looks like and if it looks off it throws you out of the movie.

How was it directing someone else’s script?

TM: It was great. You always know what you would do, but it’s great to have writers write because you can be a little bit more objective about it. Originally [Megamind] was written in 2003 as a live action movie. I’m glad I’m not doing the writing because it takes a lot of time and you get another point of view that you can look at and envision.

You have Will Ferrell and Tina Fey and who are big writers as well.

TM: And Jonah Hill, David Cross.

How does all of that input go into making the screenplay better?

TM: You always have what’s on the page which is often pretty good. A character enters the scene here and exits. How you get there can either be comedic or dramatic. They’re versatile actors so they can play both. Once you get the pages that are written, you go back and try playing around and try improvisation. The readers that read with them are improvisational actors. They’ll run with whatever the give and take is and you get gold out of that. [The actors] were great collaborators. They just come in and read the lines and they can take it and twist it. Since they are all comedic geniuses it makes it that much funnier.

Is there any new animation that you’re excited about in this film?

TM: Yeah, particularly 3D. I know it’s been hyped up as this gimmicky thing. I was worried about it because this is my first 3D film. Are we going to have to have warriors with swords going at the camera? Luckily we’re past all that. Because [Megamind] is authored in 3D, there are a lot of opportunities to choreograph the camera and do really subtle camera work. It’s really beneficial in 3D to bring out the emotional side of the story. It’s like having another color or the way you light a scene to pull out the emotion. It’s the use of space, volumes of space, how close characters can be together, how far you can pull them apart to make a point in an emotional scene. Alongside the technology, to give you an example, the first Madagascar was set in New York but we couldn’t build the city and render it in a computer. We kept crashing every computer because it was just too much information. 8 years later we can build an entire city from the cracks in the streets to the tar that fix the cracks up to the tallest skyscraper with reflective windows with office spaces within those windows and light it. That along with the level of expertise animators have now during the crossover from regular animation to computer animation. The sophistication of the tools they have now to bring out performances that are really nuance. That is what all of us working on the film are most proud of. I hope you see that in the film.

It is such a great tool. You can even edit in 3D and that’s big. You can see if you want to combine a shot. The value of animation is that you can combine two shots into one. The more you get into, the more you find you can immerse people into. Instead of throwing people back into their seats reacting to something, you could actually draw them in.

What were some of the challenges you faced making Megamind?

TM: Keeping it to length is very challenging. It’s a very complicated story. I have to say it’s a very sophisticated story with having a love story involved. It’s very tricky and very challenging. Plus you have superhero action, comedy, but at the center of this is a love story and that’s probably the hardest thing to pull off. It has to be sincere, it has to be believable.

Also telling story from a villain and making him empathetic and sympathetic throughout the movie was particular challenge. Will Ferrell helps in that regard because he has vulnerability to him. It’s tricky to be able to emphasize with a character that’s doing bad things is very tricky to negotiate, also balancing comedy versus the dramatic part of the story. You want to believe in the stakes, the jeopardy, and the relationship. I was pulling jokes out of the movie because they would step on the emotional spine of it. Sometimes you have to give up the jokes to make you believe in the characters.

Are there any Superhero myths that ended up in the story?

TM: There are a lot of troupes of superhero logic that are fun to turn on their ear. For example, when the hero and villain engage there has to be banter. [Megamind] has an invisible car but he keeps losing the invisible car because it’s invisible. Those types of things you can draw comedy from and play with the genre. It isn’t based on any particular superhero but just the trappings and the genre are fun to poke fun at.

One of the big draws for me, in this movie, was to do a lot things that you never see in superhero movies. For example, the bad guy never wins. What if he did win? What would he do? He takes over the Oval Office and he has all the art and the wealth. Would he be bored out of his mind now that he’s won? Those ideas were fun to play with. You never get that far in a normal superhero movie.

Did you have a favorite superhero growing up?

TM: I liked Batman and Superman. I was about 8 when Batman the Movie came out with Adam West. I didn’t necessarily know it was a comedy because I was so young [laughs]. I was funny that Robin solved everything and Batman just asked the questions. I do remember Batman running around with a bomb and he couldn’t get rid of it. There were ducks in the way and a nun. Even as a kid it made me laugh. Superman came out in the 70’s and I was at the age where I wished I could fly. You’re in that fantasy adolescence and I believed in it. It was the first film that took the genre seriously and believed in it. [Megamind] aspires to have the believability of Superman and the comedy of Batman.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.